Meal Planning Help

There are lots of different meal planning guides available on the internet from other scouting units. The Scouts BSA Handbook (Section 10), Fieldbook (Chapter 3), and the Cooking/Camping Merit Badge Booklets are great sources as well. Our troop has used the following google sheet for planning purposes.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PZnE2F5dn8ltCSebti4WAtF5hmkN4dGrLp7KddnTQYM/edit?usp=sharing

I took the following from https://troop3ambler.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Troop-3-Menu-Planner.pdf

Guidelines For Planning a Menu and Buying Food For Your Patrol

Menu Planning: When planning a menu for your Patrol you must follow the 1st Class rank guidelines. The meals should be nutritious and not too difficult or time-consuming to prepare. List every item and the quantities needed to prepare the meal (usually found in the recipe). Use the Daily Food Planner from MyPlate.GOV (https://www.myplate.gov/sites/default/files/2021-08/2020MyPlatePlan_1600cals_Age14%2B.pdf) as a guide to the recommended amount of each food group. Take into consideration the dietary restrictions of those in your Patrol. The budget for purchasing the meals is $15 per scout going on the trip.

Meals Must Meet the Following Guidelines

Breakfasts: must require some degree of preparation. It is understood that a “fully cooked” breakfast may not always be practical, but do not plan a strictly “cold” breakfast for the first morning (usually Saturday) of a campout. Easy preparation/clean-up or “cold” breakfasts are permissible for the morning the Troop departs from a campout location.

Lunches: do not necessarily have to be “cooked,” but must require some degree of preparation.

Dinners: The meal (specifically the main dish) must be prepared and cooked. It must contain raw ingredients (meat, vegetables, fruit, etc.) and consist of three or more different ingredients that require some degree of preparation (not just dumped out of a can into a pot).

Additional Information & Guidelines

• For some great menu ideas, consult the Scout Handbook or the Scout Fieldbook. For additional recipe ideas, the BSA's Camp Cookery for Small Groups is a great one.

• Person buying food is responsible for the food/ice cooler for the duration of the campout.

• When planning a menu please take into consideration the dietary restrictions of those in your Patrol and incorporate them into the Patrol Menu.

• Drinks must be non-carbonated and cannot contain caffeine (no soft drinks of any kind).

• Do not buy paper plates and plastic eating utensils. (Every Scout should have their own mess kit.)

• The scout buying food (grubmaster) should be aware of what food and cooking items are currently in the Patrol Box and pantry so as not to buy unnecessary items. If you plan to use items from the pantry please notify the Quartermaster and other Patrol Grubmasters for the trip.

• When buying meat such as ground meat, stewing meat, etc. use 1/4 lb per person as a guide.

• Plan on each scout drinking one cup of juice at each meal.

• Raw vegetables, such as carrots, can be used as snacks & fulfill a meal’s Fruit/Veggie requirement.

• Attach food receipt to the approved Patrol Menu Planning Worksheet and return to the Senior Patrol Leader after the campout

A Parent’s Guide to Grocery Shopping

Troop 450 strives to be ‘Boy Lead’. While on campouts, the Scouts camp by Patrols. Each Patrol (including the adults as their own patrol separate from Scouts) does its own shopping for the campout. Two or more Scouts from the Patrol meet and do the shopping together. Most patrols meet on a Wednesday or Thursday evening to shop after collecting everyone's $15 the previous Sunday. You should NOT shop the day of the campout. At the Sunday Troop meeting before the campout, the Patrol developed a menu and shopping list to use. Our Patrol Menu Planning Worksheet, which is available on the website, can help facilitate the planning process.

Your job as a parent is to help them follow the Patrol’s plan. If this plan is missing, your Scout will need to contact his Patrol Leader to resolve the issue. In order to comply with the BSA regulations (AKA Youth Protection Barriers to Abuse - Two Deep Leadership), we ask that another adult, over the age of 21, also attend the grocery shopping with you. This ideally would be a parent of the other scout who is also grocery shopping.

Let the Scouts do the shopping. While it is okay to give the Scout shoppers a little advice and direction, they need to choose the food and make the decisions themselves. Help them not to overbuy items especially perishable like milk, fruits, and vegetables. Help control costs. Scouts can do this by buying store brands, avoiding individually packaged items, and picking raw ingredients over prepared foods.

The Scouts will pay for the groceries with the funds collected from other scouts. After the camping trip, the grubmaster must turn in the Patrol Menu Planning Worksheet with the receipt attached, and any unused funds to the Scoutmaster or Assistant Scoutmaster.

After shopping, the Scouts will need to take the food home until the campout.

On the Sunday before the campout, Scouts will need to take their Patrol’s cooler home with them. On the day of the campout, the Scouts will need to pack the food in their Patrol’s cooler/ice chests with ice and bring it with them to the event or the designated gathering location.